SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- For 30 minutes, Seton Hall played about as well it could play, keeping up with one of the top teams in the country.

Then, Notre Dame junior forward Luke Harangody took over and the Pirates' chances of an upset disappeared, and Seton Hall fell to the No. 13 Irish, 88-79, in the Joyce Center Saturday afternoon.

Seton Hall's downfall came from two critical mistakes.

Sophomore Jeremy Hazell, who didn't start the game due to an unspecified violation of team rules but "nothing major" according to Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez, drew a technical foul that resulted in a four-point Pirates lead being cut down to 58-56, with 13:07 left.

Almost six minutes later, with 7:43 left, sophomore forward-center Mike Davis was called for an intentional foul on Harangody. Gonzalez said he thought Davis was going for the ball and said he was "a little surprised by the play."

Harangody, the reigning Big East Player of the Year, made one of two free throws and then a layup on the ensuing possession, giving the Irish a four-point lead they wouldn't relinquish.

"There were a couple of momentum things," Gonzalez said.

It was part of a run for Harangody in which he scored 12 of Notre Dame's 15 points -- part of his 30-point, 16-rebound performance -- and erased the momentum Seton Hall built throughout the first 30 minutes.

With Hazell not starting and mostly ineffective -- he wasn't made available for comment after the game after scoring 12 points, a little more than half of his 23.1 point average -- Seton Hall relied on a pair of juniors, guard Eugene Harvey and forward Robert Mitchell, to keep up with the Irish.

Harvey scored a team-high 21 points, including a floater off the backboard at the buzzer of the first half to give Seton Hall (9-7, 0-4 Big East) a 42-41 lead. Harvey then stood at the Notre Dame baseline as his teammates mobbed him. When Harvey wasn't scoring, Mitchell found holes in the Notre Dame defense to score 15 points.

"We were in sync," Mitchell said. "Guys were making plays for other guys. Everything just kind of came together. We had a poise to us. We scored and got stops."

Seton Hall also pressured Notre Dame (12-3, 3-1), at one point forcing two straight steals in the second half which led to layups and gave the Pirates momentum. It also startled the Irish, who weren't pressured much in the first half.

Even the positive plays, though, ended with a negative undertone. The second steal and layup by Hazell resulted in a technical foul on the sophomore for excessive celebration, according to Gonzalez.

"They got frustrated," Notre Dame junior point guard Tory Jackson said. "Even when they made the plays, they got frustrated, got a technical foul and built from there."

With Seton Hall giving the Irish breaks, Harangody started his typical work. He carried Notre Dame down the stretch, giving the Irish their 20th straight home win in the Big East and 45th straight home win overall. The 20 straight in the Big East ties a conference record with Pittsburgh. The 45 straight overall is the best mark in the NCAA.

And it left Seton Hall winless in the Big East. Gonzalez dismissed his team's 0-4 start in the rugged conference, which had nine teams ranked in the Top 25 this week. Saying it "means nothing," Gonzalez said he wouldn't bring it up with his team, which was in a similar situation a season ago, starting 0-3 in the league before winning five straight.

"Right now, we got picked in the lower echelon of the league and right now we probably belong in the lower echelon of the league," Gonzalez said. "Sometimes you can play people and get beat even though you played great basketball. And that's what happened today.

"We can't look at that 0-4. We've got to look at how we're playing and just got to keep our heads up and win some games."